Worthy
by SgtMac
Summary: After a freak accident causes Regina to believe that she's still the Evil Queen from her Enchanted Forest days, Emma finds herself facing off against her all while trying to protect her family and convince Regina that this isn't the woman that she wants to be. Established SQ.


**A/N:** Hey, all - this is my submission to the most recent Swan Queen week. It's vaguely amnesia-like, but mostly it's an emotional character study of Regina and Emma and their romantic relationships. It *kind of* takes places after the S3 finale, but there's no Robin, Hook or Marian. Initially, this was meant to be part of something much bigger, but there wasn't the time for 200K so you get this.

Enjoy and as always, thanks so much for reading!

* * *

"Exactly what is it that you plan to do with that little weapon of yours, dear?" the older woman practically purrs, malice dripping from every syllable. Her dark eyes are even darker now, almost furiously black, and her lip is curled up into a sneer.

She looks feral, Emma thinks and then wonders how she can push the thought away without indicating to Regina that she's having the thought at all. Right now is truly not the time for any degree of levity – not while she's pointing a gun right at Regina and threatening to pull the trigger if the woman takes another step towards the room that houses her mother and her little brother (she hopes that David is having more luck finding Gold and getting answers – and hopefully a solution to this mess - than she is at keeping Regina away from Mary Margaret).

She thinks that she can fire the gun if she has to, but prays it won't come to that.

If it does, though, if she has to choose between an innocent child and a woman who isn't herself right now, she knows what choice she'll make – what choice Regina herself would want her to make. Even though it would destroy them all.

Even though she knows that such a choice would surely break her heart in half.

Emma swallows and for a moment she can't manage any kind of reply and her words just stick in her throat and the only sound that comes out of her is harsh breathing. So much for playing chicken with the former Evil Queen (right now, Regina is seriously working on getting rid of the former part of that sentence and that's why they're here right now standing off with gun and fire) because Regina would have to be a moron (unfortunately, she's quite far from one) to believe that Emma isn't scared out of her mind and perhaps even unwilling to do this.

"Regina," she whispers finally and her voice sounds like it's emerging from a cheese grater. "I need you to just…I need you to just step back, okay? Please."

"Please," Regina repeats and she's almost laughing which is a very bad sign.

Because this reminds her of the stories she's heard and read of the woman who had once terrorized the Enchanted Forest – once terrorized her mother. This reminds her of the woman she'd met ever so briefly during her trip back through time. That Queen had been sadistic and cruel and had sentenced her to death.

This can't possibly be the same woman.

That was the Evil Queen.

This is Regina.

Emma knows her and loves her and knows that this isn't the woman she loves.

"Please," Emma echoes, forcing a smile onto her lips, one that she hopes is free of any kind of threat. "You don't want to do this. You don't believe me right now, but something is very wrong with you but if you'll just…if you'll stand down and put your hands down and put your magic away, I can help you. If you'll let me."

She's outright pleading at this point, but really, what else is there?

There's just Regina with so much rage and homicidal fury and then there's her and she will do anything she can to protect the family she's won back and the family that she has earned and that includes both the woman that she might have to destroy to save and the son that both she and Regina love more than life itself.

Even if Regina can't for the moment remember that love.

Right now, she seems to remember pretty much nothing about the woman she's become and everything about the one that she was over three decades ago.

Fucking Pan.

They'd forgotten about his curse and Snow's curse and how neither one of those curses had been the one that Regina had cast – they had all forgotten about that.

Even Regina had forgotten.

And then she'd driven across the line out of Storybrooke and promptly crashed into a tree just beyond the spray-paint border that had for so long separated this little town from the rest of the "real world". Regina's intent hadn't been escape or anything spectacular; merely, she'd wanted to collect something for their son for his birthday – something that could only be found in another state – New York.

It'd been Emma's idea; a sophisticated radio control helicopter toy that he'd loved and wanted while he'd been there and something that his two mothers could buy him together just before they'd dropped the bombshell about _them_ onto him.

That had been the plan, anyway, and yes it'd been a cowardly one, but Regina had been terrified and Emma had chosen to let her take the lead on this simply because trying to push Regina here could only lead to even worse things such as the former Queen choosing to give up on them completely out of fear alone.

This had been their compromise; a little buttering up of Henry and then they would come out and tell him the truth about how his mothers who had worked together to defeat the threat from Arendale had then found themselves falling –

Regina had stopped her there. They weren't to say the word "love" because well, she hadn't thought that they should rush things. They should explain that this was just the early exploratory stage and anything could happen going forward.

Emma had rolled her eyes, but acquiesced because she'd woken up to Regina's mouth against her neck and the former queen's hand between her legs, and though she's smart enough to know that that's just sex, she'd also felt the way that Regina had nuzzled into her. She's understood the unspoken sentiment.

She'd heard the words in the soft warmth of Regina's breath against her neck.

And yes, she'd understood the fear that had kept the actual words locked away.

Fear of losing once more and fear of Henry rejecting not just her but also them.

So she'd tried to slow things down and build in a hundred qualifiers and escape hatches - a way to get out of everything and a way to escape all of her emotions.

Emma had permitted Regina's attempt at back-stepping (all the while somewhat amused at her own lack of desire or will to do the same) because there'd been no need to rush things between them and with their son along; she had easily agreed to Regina's terms because in those wonderful moments, curled up with the former queen under thick warm blankets and silky cool sheets, Emma had felt for once like time had actually been on their side and that a bit more patience was something that she could supply if it might mean something great and epic.

Something like the kind of love story that she had long ago given up on and stopped believing in, and yet had somehow stumbled face-first into, anyway.

Oh, but how she wishes she could go back and change things now; how she desperately wishes right at this moment that she could have convinced Regina that there'd been no need to soften Henry up and that their son would have accepted their new romantic relationship just because of his fierce love for them.

But she'd simply held Regina tighter that night and agreed with her plan and now here they are and this could have been avoided but it's far too late for regrets.

There's just this: a loaded service pistol and the elegant fiery hands of a Queen and somewhere behind her, Little Dude is crying and Snow is trying to calm him.

Snow rather blissfully has no idea that the Evil Queen is standing outside of her apartment – her eyes black and full of vengeance even though Regina had given that up and she and her former stepdaughter had reconciled rather beautifully.

But this isn't Regina she's standing opposite, Emma reminds herself. This is a different woman than the one that she's gotten use to waking up curled around.

She hasn't been Regina since three days ago when she and Regina had driven over the spray-painted town-line in the Mercedes, both of them forgetting that one of them wasn't immune from forgetting; both of them forgetting about Pan.

Regina had been quietly brooding (and no, she hadn't wanted to accept a penny or a nickel or anything else for her thoughts) and Emma had been texting Henry, assuring him that she and his adoptive mom would be fine (he'd known that this trip of theirs had been about him, but he hadn't known the why of things and after getting shut down repeatedly when he'd tried to find out, he'd sighed and begged them to both come back to him in one piece) and that he was worrying about silly things. In short, Emma had been chiding their son for not having more faith in his two mothers, telling him that he should think about how far together they'd come.

Yes, she'd even used the word "together" knowing full well that Regina would have a fit if she'd been aware of Emma's less than subtle hints about them.

But Regina had been staring at the road ahead so Emma had just kept typing.

And then the Benz had rolled over the town line and Regina had gasped loudly.

That's when the tree had jumped out in front of them.

Or rather when Regina – suddenly having no idea how to drive thanks to a second curse that had robbed away her expected immunity – had run into it.

There had been a loud cry and a soft whimper and then so much black smoke and red blood. There'd been pain and a broken wrist and Regina not moving.

But they'd both survived, both opened their eyes again and now there's just this.

Now they're facing off and it's a gun and two hands full of magic and it's been three days since the accident and Regina still has bruises everywhere on her; there's a long gash on her forehead and apparently it hasn't even occurred to the Queen that it's strange that it hasn't occurred to her to try to conceal the injury.

But that's the very least of their – or more specifically, her – problems right now.

Because it's been three days since the accident at the town-line and now they're back in Storybrooke but Regina doesn't remember the woman who she's become and thinks she's the one she once was (isn't a curse supposed to give you a new identity? Why is it, she wonders, that Regina had reverted back to who she was instead of becoming someone like Lacey) and Emma thinks that if she can't figure out the right words right now, one of them is likely going to die.

Probably her because she just doesn't think she can fire her gun; she knows that she can't shoot to kill this woman whose soft hands against her face and cold feet against her own far warmer ones she remembers entirely too well and too fondly) and that puts Emma at a hideous disadvantage because the woman standing opposite her – not quite the Evil Queen but not even remotely Regina Mills anymore – seems to have no real concerns about killing the blonde woman.

She seems to not have a concern for much of anything; it's fairly terrifying.

"I don't need your help," Regina replies haughtily, an eyebrow arching up. "And even if I did, what could the sullied offspring of Snow White ever do for me?"

"Sullied?" Emma asks. "Really?"

"Well, we already know that you welped a child with Rumplestiltskin's offspring."

Part of Emma really wants to remind her counterpart here that the child that she had…welped…is in fact the young boy that Regina loves more than anything in this world or anything. She doesn't say this, though, because Regina had already reacted with derisive cruelty the first few times that Henry had been mentioned (and when she'd seen him next to her bed in the hospital right after waking up post-injury) and that will be an ugly mess that will need to be cleaned up later.

For now, though…

For now, she's got to figure out how to ensure that there is a later for all of them.

Her mother. Little Dude. Henry. Regina. Herself.

All of them.

Regina's glowing hands aren't helping with her confidence in that regard.

"Is it so really so hard to imagine that you've sullied yourself with others?" the Queen sniffs, eyeing Emma like she's some kind of trash from the street.

"Only you," Emma replies without thinking, unable to conceal her hurt; it's sloppy and somewhat out of character because she's been hurt so many times and by so many people and she's always been able to hide her feelings, but right now hearing the woman who had just ten days ago called her "unimaginably beautiful" now describing her as trash aches in a way that Emma can't quite put into words.

Regina laughs. "As if I would ever lower myself down to you."

Emma swallows again. "Right. Look, I need you to understand; I'm no threat."

"That…weapon says otherwise," Regina sneers, looking at the gun with disdain.

"See it from my side; your hands are on fire and I have a good understanding of exactly what you're capable of when you're pissed off," Emma suggests, wishing for a moment that this woman was anyone else besides her friend and her teacher and her lover; it would be so much easier if she was just someone that it was her responsibility as the Savior to try to save. But she's not and Emma has gotten so use to Regina's cold feet that now it's impossible to sleep without them.

"Do you now?"

"Intimately." It's a crass double-entendre but even now, Emma can't help herself from crawling under the other woman's skin – or at least attempting to do so; the Evil Queen is different than Regina and her tolerance for crudeness is far more.

Regina chuckles then, the sound dangerously low and amused in a rather dark way that immediately sets Emma's nerves on edge; she's being played with here.

"I do believe you're deluded. Or obsessed with me. Perhaps both."

"Regina –"

"It's funny, dear, but I almost think that I remember you. You do seem familiar."

"I should seem familiar; we're friends – good friends - Regina. We truly are."

The older woman laughs again, this time with far less amusement. "I'm a Queen, little girl; despite your delusions to the opposite, I have no friends and the lovers that I have taken would certainly not include a…street rat like yourself." Her smile widens out. "That's where I remember you from. But you had a different face."

"Glamour," Emma says softly. "And if you could actually remember who you are _now_, you would know that you already know the rest of the story. You already know why I was there and…you _know_, Regina. But yes, that was me back then."

"Time travel?" the Queen asks, her head tilted in curiosity. For the moment, the fire blazing away in her hands settles and so Emma chooses to humor her. If only so that she can steal enough time to figure out how to subdue Regina.

Maybe even buy enough time for David to get back here with Gold if he's been lucky enough to find the infuriating imp and force him to help with this problem.

Which, really, considering the Evil Queen's hatred for Rumple, would be in his best interest; Emma has no doubt that once she and Snow are out of the way, the half-crazed woman in front of her will go after anyone else in her way.

This Regina is batshit crazy and doesn't seem to care that the people around her have no interest in harming her; this Regina is at the deep end of the sanity pool and she's looking up and seeing nothing but darkness and shadows above her.

"Yes," Emma agrees. "A time travel spell, actually."

"I'd heard such wasn't possible," the Queen says with narrowed eyes. "How?"

"The Wicked Witch did it, not me."

"East or West?"

"You know, I never did find that out. But I think you probably know. When you're back to yourself again, we can talk about that. Sound good to you?"

"Back to believing that I'm some housebroken version of myself, are we?"

"Not housebroken," Emma insists. "Happier. Not so angry all the time."

"What do you know about such things?" the Queen fires back dismissively. "The perfect pampered princess daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming."

"I grew up neither pampered nor a princess," Emma answers, trying to ignore the strangeness of reiterating her history to a woman who somewhere deep inside knows it better than anyone besides Emma herself. "And I spent a lot of time angry and hurting and feeling like I was exactly the street rat you see me as."

Regina's eyebrow arches. "So I was right from the very beginning about you."

"I guess you were, but you're not right about yourself." Emma steps closer, her eyes on Regina's fiery hands. "I need you to listen to me, okay? You know something is off here. You're in a place that you don't remember, somewhere you shouldn't be. Look down at yourself. Look at what you're wearing. Look at your hair. You're not the Evil Queen anymore, Regina. You're just Regina."

Regina huffs indignantly, the sneer returning. "I will always be the Queen."

"What if I said I know that you don't actually want to be her anymore."

"I would say that you are once again suggesting a familiarity that if you insist on continuing to suggest is likely to get your head mounted upon my front gate." She chuckles darkly at the thought of this. "It would make a wonderful trophy for me."

"That's…disturbing in ways that we are going to talk about eventually."

"On the contrary, I have no further interest in this conversation," Regina growls in response, the sound both chilling and in a way that Emma would prefer not to think about, somewhat arousing (she admits to herself that now is neither the time or the place for this, but there's always been something erotic about Regina with power). "You are of no use to me as anything beyond a plaything, and even that I have no interest in with _you_. Now, submit and kneel before your Queen – and make no mistake, dear girl, I _am_ your Queen - or die for your disrespect and insubordination to the crown; either way, you won't keep me from Snow White."

"I have to admit: I was hoping for a different set of choices," Emma replies with a tired sigh before she holds up her pistol again. "But you're not getting past me."

"Fire versus that," the Queen says lazily. "I can't really see this going your way."

"Emma smiles thinly. What she doesn't say is that she has noticed something rather strange about the way that Regina has been wielding her magic since the car accident; since then, she's only used fire and nothing else. She hasn't tried –or perhaps she has and failed and thus not tried again - to move energy around to heal even her superficial wounds and she hasn't tried to transport herself from place to place. More importantly for now, she's not bending metal which means that yes, the gun that Emma is holding in her hand just might be enough.

"You're not getting past me without taking my life," Emma answers firmly, her finger sliding down to the trigger and exerting just the slightest bit of force.

"That can be arranged," Regina laughs and then pulls back her hand as if to throw the fire. She clearly believes that Emma doesn't have the nerve to actually fire the weapon in her hand; has clearly read Emma as compromised by emotion.

Regina is entirely right, of course, and this is one of the hardest things that Emma has ever had to choose to do (and in a lifetime of difficult and impossible choices, she believes that that's saying something rather intense about her deep feelings for Regina), but she knows that she can't let Regina take another life.

Not hers (though she has a feeling that that's not the Queen's intent just yet, for reasons likely to do with the sadistic glee of forcing Emma to see that she'd failed in her quest – but she's not going to fail) and not her mother or Little Dude's.

So when Regina exposes her side so that she can toss the fireball, Emma throws up a quick shield (it's the one bit of magic that she's learned how to master with relative ease) and then uses Regina's surprised pause to shoot her pistol.

Twice.

The first bullet tears through the soft flesh and hard bone of Regina's right hand creating a grotesque almost gaping semi-hole that makes Emma want to throw up almost immediately, but it kills the fireball instantly; the second bullet digs into her exposed right side.

The Queen gasps and looks up at her in something like shocked wonder.

"I'm sorry," Emma says softly, taking a tentative step forward. "And when this is all over and you're back to the woman I…to Regina again, I'll make this up to you. I promise you I will. Whatever it takes. But I need you to understand, okay?"

"You…" She staggers and falls to a knee, her good hand over her bloodied side and her wounded one clutched tight against her body as she grits her teeth.

"I'm sorry," Emma repeats again, and prays for Regina to lose consciousness.

Because Snow had certainly had the gunshots and is most likely securing Little Dude so that she can come outside and figure out what's going on, and if the Queen sees her and tries to attack, Emma knows that she'll shoot her again.

And Regina is already losing too much blood for that to be a good idea.

A door opens behind her and oh, there's not enough time to make this better.

"Emma –"

"Stay inside," the sheriff says, knowing her words will be ignored. Her green eyes never leave Regina's and she's desperately searching for something familiar.

"Regina!" Snow calls out as she storms forward, confusion etched onto her face.

"Hello, Snow," the older woman hisses from the ground, bright blood spilling out between her fingers as she glares up at her former stepdaughter with intense hatred in her dark eyes. "You had to know that I'd be dropping by to say hello."

"Emma, what is going on?" Snow demands, eyes wide as she looks down at the woman who she had very recently made amends with. Up until three days ago, things had actually been quite good between Regina and Snow – to the point where they'd even been talking about eventually telling her, too, about them.

"The car accident has some unexpected consequences," Emma replies, her gun still trained on Regina. The older woman seems to be trying to force flames back through her hands but whether it's pain or whatever force is dampening the rest of her magic, she suddenly seems unable to control it enough to utilize it. Which is good for everyone including Regina because now, Emma knows that she can do what must be done and as horrifying as that it, it's also freeing because it means that she can protect her family and loved ones – even if they don't realize that they need it. "Apparently, it wiped out Regina's memories and replaced them with the Evil Queen. Circa sometime in the homicidal part of your feud with her."

"That was the only part," Snow snaps and then steps forward, as if to move to Regina's side and try to help her deal with the intense pain that she's clearly in.

"No," Emma says immediately, stepping in the way of her agitated mother. "I know you want to – believe me, I want to go over there, too, but it's not safe yet."

"In case you two idiots were unaware, I'm still right here and can hear you."

"I'm very aware," Emma replies softly. "Now, please, Regina, stay there, okay?"

"If you truly know me as well as you say you do, dear – as intimately as you say that you do," she grins suggestively there, looking right at Snow and getting the shocked response that she'd been expecting in response to the clear implication that she's making, "Then you know better to think that I'd ever stay where told."

"I know," Emma nods, practically scowling as she thinks about just how insanely stubborn this woman is. "But I don't want to have to hurt you, anymore. Please."

"Oh, is the Savior struggling with hurting the woman that she's obsessed with. Tell me, Snow, how does that make you feel to know that your beloved little girl is madly in love with your mortal enemy. The one who would see you both dead?"

"Emma," Snow whispers, her hand settling on her daughter's forearm.

"We can talk about this later; for now, I need you to go back inside and make sure that my baby brother is safe. I'll handle Regina. She's not getting past me."

"Can you kill me?" Regina asks, holding up a hand bright with her own blood, the hole that had been created gaping and gory. "Do you have the courage for that?"

It makes Emma's stomach flip and Snow gasp in horror, a hand over her mouth.

"No," Emma admits. "But I can damn well put a bullet through your other hand and other side, and if that's what it takes to stop you from becoming this woman again, then I'll do it." Her eyes narrow and harden. "Without hesitation."

"You're going to have to," Regina growls, and then starts to stand, her good hand up and fire – however small and flickering that it might be – settled in her palm.

"Emma, no!" Snow cries out immediately, watching as the sheriff's gun rises up and seeing the pained determination on Emma's face as she tries to figure out how just how far she is willing to go to stop this nightmare from continuing on.

"Not so fast, Your Majesty," a heavily accented voice says from behind. And then the Queen is being yanked up into the air and spun around to face her teacher.

"Rumple," she growls, struggling against the invisible restraints, fear on her face.

"Let her go," Emma says immediately, instinctively, knowing the fear all too well.

But this isn't the time or place for such things, and so Rumplestiltskin ignores her and stalks towards her favorite student, yanking her head up as he does so. He gazes into her eyes. "I do believe she's done to herself what she did to Belle."

"Gold," David growls, and that's when both Emma and Snow notice him standing there, just behind Rumple, a look of frustrated fear on his handsome features.

"Let me go," Regina hisses.

"In a moment, perhaps," Rumple agrees. "But first we have to do something about you. First, we have to try to get rid of you as you're no longer wanted." He taps his finger against Regina's jaw, chuckling when she yanks away from him.

"Gold," Emma says this time, and she feels a flush of anger because just as the Queen had somehow gone right for all of Emma's sensitive emotional areas with her harsh words, Rumple is knowingly doing the same with his angry protégé.

He's using the opportunity to tear her down as he has always done.

"Wanted here," Rumple amends, the smile still in place. "The Evil Queen serves no further purpose. Not even to me, dearie, and so she must…be gone for good."

"You're as delusional as the silly girl," Regina tells him, still struggling against her invisible restraints; Emma finds it strange that as just Regina months earlier, she hadn't done the same against Zelena – she'd just stayed still once hoisted up into the air in front of the Clock Tower – but now as the not near as still Evil Queen, she's fighting almost desperately, a look of frightened madness in her dark eyes.

"Not quite," he chuckles as he tightens his hold, grinning coldly. "We'll need to get her back to my shop; I might just have enough of the necessary ingredients to make the remembering potion. Or I might not; it's quite difficult to make."

"Do you have what you need or not?" David demands.

"I don't know," Gold admits, his voice quieter. "I suppose we shall find out."

He then tightens his hand once more. He watches as she loses consciousness and falls to the hard floor of the hallway just outside of Snow White's loft; her bloody body sprawled and badly exposed. The moment she's done, he steps over her, his hand still clenched like he's considering choking her to death.

"Gold! If you hurt her –" Emma starts as she surges forward.

"I'll kill you," Snow finishes.

He looks at both women. "Such passion for your once enemy." He looks right at Emma. "I hope you know what you're doing passing up this golden opportunity."

"If we haven't ended you, we sure as hell aren't about to end Regina," David states, stepping next to his wife and daughter. "That's not what we do, Gold."

"I'm not like you," he reminds them. "And I'm not like what you've turned her into. I can't just pretend to be someone other than I am. I know who I am."

"And I know who she is. Now help her," Emma insists. "Do the right thing."

He chuckles at that and then pulls his hand back and releases his hold. "If I might remind you, you asked for my help in stopping her," he says mildly as he observes Emma and Snow immediately rush past him so that they can get to Regina's side, both of them immediately working to assess her wounds.

Wounds he believes were caused by the woman he suspects loves the Queen.

"Then help us," Snow pleads, looking up at him with wide eyes full of panic.

"I already have; I stopped her from killing you. Or you from killing her."

"Help me get Regina back," Emma demands.

"That might not be possible; the potion is extremely hard to make."

"Are you saying Blue and Zelena can do something that you can't?"

He sneers in response, and then waves his hand in the air.

When the smoke clears, they're in his shop.

"No," he says simply. "I am not."

* * *

While the memory potion brews somewhere in the back of the shop, Gold reluctantly agrees to heal Regina's injured side, but refuses to do the same for her badly wounded hand (in case she were to wake and attempt to throw fire again, he insists, but there's a cold smile on his lips). To add insult to injury, he then insists on placing the magical restraint bracelet around her left wrist.

Emma knows how badly Regina will respond to that should she come to her senses with it still on, and so she vows that it'll be gone when she does.

What matters right now, though, is that Regina will live through this.

Her side will be sore and her hand is in bad shape, but she will survive.

Emma takes a breath and drops her head into her hands and tries not to cry.

It takes everything she has to pull it all back in again.

To try to lock the doors and not show off how frightened she truly is.

But then her parents are sitting on either side of her and Snow is wrapping an arm around her waist and she's promising that Regina is going to be just fine.

She's promising Emma that they'll get to have a difficult conversation about improper relations and she's smiling when she says this like it's already okay.

It shouldn't be, Emma thinks; Snow should be more freaked out than ever by the reminder of who her former stepmother had once been, but she's apparently not.

Apparently, she wants Regina – their Regina – back as much as Emma does.

So Emma rests her head on Snow's shoulder and allows herself a few tears.

Just a few – it's all she thinks she can give – but then Snow is holding on even tighter, and promising again and again and again that it's all going to be all right.

The tears come faster then, and God she knows better than to open up so much and to let everyone see what's inside of her (Regina can handle it because she knows and she's been there, and they just get each other, but this is different) and yet she can't seem to stop herself from responding to the comfort offered.

She can't seem to stop herself from wanting to just be a little girl with parents who can hug and kiss away all of the sadness and hurt that exists in the world.

But that's what they're trying to do (David is hugging her now as well, his head rested atop hers, his arms lightly around both she and Snow) and it feels good and safe and it's not perfect because Henry is hidden away (he and Little Dude are with Red and Granny, kept safe in case the Queen were to escape) and Regina is on the bed in the back of Gold's shop, wrists bound, unconscious.

It's not perfect and it never could be while Regina is like this, but it's okay.

And so when Snow insists once again that it will be, she allows herself to believe.

* * *

"I'm going to tell you a story," Emma says as she sits down next to the bed that Regina is tied to; it's hell to see her lover like this (especially since she regained consciousness about an hour ago and has been angrily demanding release), but it's horrifyingly necessary due to the cold rage that still simmers in her dark eyes.

She wishes that Rumple would move quicker on the potion (apparently, to make it correctly, it has to brew for far longer than Regina had allowed it to when she'd tried to replicate it for Henry's use; impatience has always been her downfall, and it seems it'd been then as well) so that can get to the healing stage of this mess.

"Will I need stick figures to understand it?" the Queen sneers at her, her harsh words betrayed by the tight lines of pain around her eyes. Her hand is bandaged and there's already blood staining the gauze so Emma reaches out for her.

"No," Emma tells her as she starts to unwind the gauze. "It's a story you know fairly well, I think, but I'm going to tell you it from my point of view, okay?"

"I have no interest in your stories."

"Well, you're a captive audience so maybe just shut up and listen, all right?"

"Will you shoot me again if I refuse?"

"Will you try to throw another fireball at my face?"

"Yes."

"Then, yes. Now shut up," Emma growls as she starts cleaning the wound out, caught between petty satisfaction at seeing Regina's sharp wince and complete and utter heartbreak at knowing that this woman is hurting because of her. "So a very long time ago, there was a beautiful girl who had a whole lot of love inside of her that she just wanted to share with everyone. But she grew up in a fucked up world full of complete dicks who didn't care much for letting people choose their own destinies." Emma nods at this description, amused by the look of surprise she sees in Regina's eyes; the Queen clearly hadn't been expecting that. "She had love in her life, but it was either taken away or not strong enough, and she ended up falling into the darkness." Emma chuckles. "Honestly, she didn't just fall, she did a complete header into it and wrapped herself up nice and tight."

"You don't know me," Regina hisses, recognizing immediately exactly whose tale is being told, and having a fairly good idea of where Emma's going.

"My story-time," Emma answers. "You can tell me your own story later, okay?"

"Oh, I plan to, dear; as I rip your –"

"Yeah, yeah. Take a breath; I need to pour the disinfectant and I might just not give a shit if it happens to sting a little bit more than usual," Emma cuts in. And then without further warning, she rubs the cotton balls over the open wound.

Regina grits her teeth, but doesn't let out a single sound, and all Emma can think of is how her own Regina is a bit more willing to show pain now than she'd once been, and what she's seeing at this exact moment is Cora's Regina instead.

"Good," Emma says softly. "Now about that girl. She took to wearing some pretty crazy outfits. I'm talking cleavage lifted way up the sky. Made her ass look great, and don't get me wrong, I'm appreciative of the view, but the make-up was a bit much and she may have been laughing all the time, but she wasn't ever happy."

Regina glares at her, still slightly shaking from her attempts to control her pain.

"She tried to make herself happy by making everyone else unhappy, but that didn't work because deep down inside, the original loving girl was still there."

"You don't know me," Regina gasps out again, teeth still clenched.

"But I do," Emma insists and then leans forward and gently – chastely – kisses Regina lightly on the mouth. She's about to pull back when she feels a tug and then a nip on her lower lip and suddenly Regina is shoving her tongue into her mouth and trying to fight for dominance even though she's completely restrained.

"Were you expecting my curse to break?" Regina laughs when Emma finally manages to pull away from her, blood on the blonde's lower lip. "Because sorry, dear, I'm still the Evil Queen. Our love for each other must not be true enough."

"That's not how it works," a voice says from behind.

"No," Emma whimpers immediately, and spins back to see Henry standing there.

"I knew something was wrong," he states and steps forward. Before he can get even an inch, though, David and Snow are rushing in as if to interfere; it's far too late for that, however. He's seen his mother as the Evil Queen once more.

And now there's just this and figuring how much damage has been done.

"Henry, Henry, Henry," the Queen coos. "My dear sweet little boy."

"I knew something was wrong at the hospital; they told me that you were just drugged up and that's why you didn't remember me, but I knew better. I knew you weren't yourself." He turns to Emma. "What happened to her? Who is this?"

"She thinks she is who she was thirty years ago."

"The Evil Queen."

"I am the Queen," Regina states and struggles against her binding, her anger and frustration growing with each moment that she's unable to access her magic.

"Did you just try to give her a True Love's kiss?" he asks Emma.

Emma sighs in resignation and her eyes flicker up to Snow and David and she's searching for the disapproval and doubt that she knows must be there, but it's not so she looks back to Henry and says softly, "Gold is working on brewing us up a memory potion, but just in case, I figured maybe it was worth a try, right?"

"True Love only works if she can feel it in her heart, and right now, this isn't…this isn't who we know. But that doesn't mean it's not True Love," Henry insists.

"I see you've been peddling your nonsense to children again, Snow."

"You peddled that nonsense to me first," Snow reminds her sharply.

"I was young and naïve. I didn't know any better, then. Now I do." She looks right at Henry. "Your precious Savior just told me a story. Let me tell you one now."

"Mom, Dad, take Henry out of here," Emma says immediately, standing in front of him in a way that makes it clear that she would kill to protect Henry right now.

Regina would expect her to do exactly that.

"Henry," David says.

"She needs me."

"Not right now," Snow tells him. "But we'll make this better. Come on. Please."

"Mom," he says as he steps back. "I know you don't remember, but I love you."

"Now," Emma says immediately, refusing to allow Regina a chance to reply.

A door shuts a moment later and the Queen chuckles.

"Did we have a threesome with Rumplestiltskin's welp? Is that how that –"

"I really need you to shut the fuck up before I do something I'll regret."

"Like shoot me again?"

"Yes."

Emma turns around, then, grabs the roll of gauze and comes back over; with hands that should be rougher but can't seem to stop shaking long enough to be gentle, she starts rewrapping the wound on Regina's palm. "So that beautiful girl," she continues. "She cast a nasty curse to try to get away from the pain she had going on deep inside of her. It brought her and everyone else from that land – including me – to this one. Where she got a second chance and managed to find love again. First with a young boy who echoed the very best of her, and then with a lost girl who wanted nothing more than to be good enough for everyone."

She presses tape down atop the gauze and then stands up, staring down at Regina all while running her tongue over the bite-mark on her lower lip.

"You should rest," she says softly. "You've had a long couple of days, and I think maybe once you wake up again, it's going to be pretty rough for you. All of us."

She starts to leave the room, but stops when the Queen calls her back.

"That lost girl is you, I presume?"

"Yeah," Emma admits. "And yeah, I know I'll never be good enough for you."

She closes the door behind her, the sound far louder than she wants it to be.

* * *

"I believe it's ready," Rumple says finally. "Do you have a cup for use?"

"Here," Henry replies, offering up a clay mug that he'd made in school so many years ago; it's hideous but he's seen his mom drink from it a hundred times.

"That'll work, right?" Emma asks, her hand weaving into her hair. She's tired and wants little more than a long nap right about now, but she won't leave until she knows if this will work; if it doesn't, they'll have to move to a different plan.

One that likely involves the fairy-dust cell in the mines, and though that's the very last place that Emma wants to ever see Regina, its where she has to be to keep Henry safe; it's where even Regina in her right mind would expect to be placed.

Emma's begging anyone who will listen to not make that horror come to pass.

"It should," Gold allows. "But you just never know." He fills the clay mug up with the potion and then hands it to Emma. "How do you plan to get her to drink it?"

"Can't I force it down her throat?"

"Like most magic of this type, dearie, it has to be consumed willingly."

"Of course it does," Emma sighs. "I'll figure it out."

"Maybe we can help?" Snow suggests.

"I'm open to ideas. I don't think pretty please is going to cut it here."

"How much pain is she in?" David queries.

"It's considerable. She won't stop moving around in her restraints so she keeps jostling the wound, and since we haven't been able to do anything for her –"

"Would you prefer she light you on fire?" Gold asks mildly.

Emma throws him a dirty look, and then returns to her parents. "She's hurting."

"Can we mix it in with tea?" Henry suggests. "Whenever she has a headache or isn't feeling good, she drinks tea. Maybe if we put in lemon or peppermint tea, she'd be willing to drink it." He looks over at Emma, hopeful about his idea.

"If she refuses and manages to break the mug, I'm not sure that I have enough supplies for another batch. At least not until the ingredients mature," Gold notes.

"What do you think?" Emma asks, looking at Snow. "You knew her best there."

"She was suspicious and wary back then; she never would have accepted it."

"But she's not suspicious of me," Henry insists. "And she's not suspicious of Emma, either. She seems more intrigued and curious. She believes what Emma is telling her, but she doesn't understand how it could be possible." He nods at his own words, as if to convince himself that he's right about this. About Regina.

"I don't know, kid," Emma replies with a deep frown. "You're reading a whole lot into two minutes of interaction with her. We'd be taking a pretty big risk on this."

"I trust my instincts," he says. "And I know my mother."

"She's not your mother right now," David reminds him.

"Yes, she is. I know her." He looks at Emma. "You know her. Even like this."

Emma bites her lip and feels the cut there; Henry is both right and wrong, of course. This Regina is nothing like the woman that she'd taken a rather sensual shower with the night before the catastrophic road-trip, and yet still, deep down there's something that Emma keeps seeing in the Queen's eyes. Some kind of desperate hope that these people who are claiming she is better might be right.

Maybe that thread of hope that exists within this Regina is just long enough to be pulled on so that they can get the one who belongs in this time and world back.

"Okay," Emma says. "Peppermint or lemon, kid?"

"Lemon," Snow says immediately. She looks at Henry who nods as if to suggest that that was about to be his answer as well. "Back when I lived with her, she was always drinking lemon tea, and I thought she just liked it, but I found out much later that she was drinking tea that had been made from lemons that had been blended with another plant on the castle grounds - one called Rutia; it was believed to assist in helping those with severe nightmares sleep without fearing their dreams. I didn't realize back then why she'd want that, but now I know."

The look that passes across Snow's face is one of intense guilt and shame; a history of the unknown horrors of her relationship with Regina surfacing darkly.

Emma stalls her thoughts by gently placing a hand on her mother's forearm and saying softly, "Then lemon tea, its is." She nods to Gold. "You have some?"

"I do," he acknowledges. "And for what it's worth, I hope you're right about this."

"Me, too," Emma sighs and then smiles at Henry to reassure him.

All the while hoping that she won't have to console him later tonight.

* * *

The Queen is exhausted and in agony, and that helps them far more than it probably should, but when Henry offers her the tea and a bowl of soup (and the freedom of her hands from the restraints – though not yet the cuff), she's either too tired or in too much pain to argue and so she takes the cup with her good hand and brings it to her nose, sniffing it before she takes a healthy swig of it.

It's while she's gasping – a second lifetime of memory flooding in – that Emma reaches out and snaps the magical restraint cuff of and throws it angrily at Gold.

It's only when it falls to Gold's feet untouched that she realizes that she probably should have waited and verified the return of her Regina to take the magic block away, but then she remembers the promise that she'd made to herself – that Regina wouldn't wake to find that horrible thing on her again – and knows that this is how it needed to be; she couldn't allow Regina to go through that again.

"Emma?" she hears. "Henry?"

"Mom?" Henry asks, stepping forward.

"What's going –" she gasps in pain, her eyes closing tightly.

"What did you buy for Henry at Christmas this last year?" Emma asks suddenly.

"What?" Regina chokes out, bringing her wounded hand to her chest as the memories continue to strike against her and she struggles to figure out how she had come to be in the middle of Gold's shop with an ugly hole through her hand.

"What did you give our son on Christmas morning? Regina, please."

"A book of history from the Enchanted Forest."

Emma nods her head. "And what did you give me?"

Regina opens her eyes and looks at Emma like she's gone mad, but something makes her answer, anyway. "My journal from when I was a teenage girl."

"Right. There you are." Emma lets out a caught breath. "Okay. Good."

"Regina," Snow says, stepping in front of Henry and Emma.

"Did I try to kill you again?"

"Yeah."

"Is that why I have a hole in my hand and my side is on fire."

"Yeah."

"I'm going to have to learn to kill you without it hurting me more than you."

"Or you could just not," Snow suggests with a small smile, her hand settling lightly on Regina's shoulder and then gently squeezing to let her know it's okay.

"Or I could just not," Regina agrees tiredly, her head hitting the pillow.

"I would say the Queen is herself once more," Rumple notes. "And since she is, I would like it if you would kindly relocate her back to her own residence."

"Always a bastard, Rumple," Regina chuckles.

"Next time perhaps you won't step in the way of me and my son's murderer."

Regina's eyes open and she looks directly at Gold – something strange and inexplicable passing between them, almost like she knows – but then she simply sighs and says to no one in particular. "I don't believe that I can poof myself."

"We'll take care of it," David assures her. "I'll go get the car."

"Thanks," Emma nods. She reaches out and after just the briefest moment of hesitation, settles her hand against Regina's soft cheek. "Welcome back."

"No more road-trips," Regina suggests, practically slurring her words now.

"No more road-trips," Emma agrees and then smiles back at Henry and nods.

Once again, his faith had paid off.

Once again, he'd seen what no one else had.

Once again, Henry Mills had seen the hope where no one else could.

And now, because of that, they're going home.

* * *

It's a few days later, and though her wounded right hand is still tightly bandaged (it's harder to entirely heal a hole), her spirits are relatively strong and high.

Especially considering the three days she'd spent as the Evil Queen.

The one thing that's noticeable is her attempts to make it up to Henry – to assure him that her reactions to him hadn't come from the heart of the woman he has known as his mother for almost thirteen years; she needn't worry, though, because Henry seems more buoyed than ever by his ability to have still seen Regina lurking down deep within the Evil Queen. That and he's oddly – almost inexplicably – ecstatic about the newly revealed relationship between his moms.

It's staggeringly weird, but a great relief to both of them so they just go with it.

It's when he's in bed and curled tight beneath his blankets that Regina finally turns to her thoughts and attention to the other people in her life; Snow had been extremely gracious and understanding of the renewed attempt to kill her and her child, simply glad not to have lost the treasured woman that she'd just regained.

Emma is another matter entirely.

Not because Emma is making it so, but because Regina thinks she can see the dark shadows now. Of doubt and fear, of insecurities that she can't quite hide.

She's watching Emma from the bed as the younger woman moves around the room, folding clothes and trying to keep everything clean as she knows Regina prefers her to. "I asked Gold why you weren't able to use your magic like normal; he said it had something to do with the way the curse wrote things. My mother didn't make active suggestions like you did and there was no active personality over-write so when you triggered it, it inserted some bizarre kind of hybrid personality – something that your curse and Pan's had created. Which is why we ended up with an Evil Queen who was missing almost all of her magic."

"Except fire," Regina notes. "I figured this new world that I had suddenly woken up had altered my magic and as long as I had my fireballs, it was enough."

"Yeah," Emma sighs. "Almost was."

"You did the right thing," Regina tells her. "She's fading from my mind again, becoming the ghost she was always meant to be, but I can taste her rage still."

"I don't like hurting you," Emma insists, stepping closer, but holding her distance.

"I will heal." She holds out her good hand. "Unless you would prefer not to."

Emma hesitates for a moment and then steps closer and takes the hand, sweeping into Regina's arms and then against her. "I missed you," she says.

"Kiss me."

"Are you going to bite me?"

"Only if you want me to."

"Maybe not tonight," Emma replies quietly and then leans up and gently presses her lips to Regina's, sighing into the soft non-combative contact that she feels.

They're naked and tangled together beneath the silky sheets, and it's wonderful and warm (and for once, Regina is the one holding her), but Emma can't sleep.

"I have a story for you," she hears suddenly, Regina's voice low and throaty and directly into her right ear. "I believe I owed you one. Would you like to hear it?"

"Sure," Emma replies, turning to face Regina. She reaches up and pushes a lock of hair away from Regina's brow, allowing herself to look fully at the woman.

"It's about a beautiful girl who grew up in a land that she was never meant to grow up in. This land, unfortunately, suffers from many of the same evils that the one she'd been pushed out of had. It breeds abuse and hated and it makes children who were never meant to be sad and lonely feel like they're not enough."

"Regina –"

"Shhh. As you said, this is my story-time; you already had yours."

Emma swallows but then nods her head, closing her eyes when she feels the way Regina uses the fingers on her good hand to lightly trace the planes of Emma's face, gliding them over cheekbones and soft skin before brushing them past delicate eyelashes. "That beautiful girl somehow still managed to grow up with a heart full of love even though the land she'd come to was one that did everything it could to take that love from her. She grew up strong and stubborn and defiant. And obnoxiously blonde." Regina chuckles throatily at her own joke.

"You like my hair."

"I love your hair. And I love you." She leans and presses her lips to Emma's, lightly running her tongue over a cut that's mostly healed now. "The woman that I was lost sight of the ability to see the good in anyone because she lost the ability to see the good in herself. You and Henry have shown me how to do that again."

"I just want….I want…"

"To be enough," Regina finishes for her. "You are. More than enough."

"Even though I'm a street rat?"

"Oh, yes. And you have your charms. Even as a street rat."

Emma laughs at that. Then, quietly, "You know you said the L word first, right?"

"I don't want to ever be _her_ again. But if it were to ever occur again for whatever bizarre reason, I want you to know that you have always been worthy of me. I want you to know that you are loved precisely because you are able to love me."

Emma answers by pressing her forehead against Regina's, and sighing quietly.

After a moment, she finally says, "So is that your story, Your Majesty?"

"Oh, I have many stories. Like one about that same stubborn blonde girl finding her way beneath the sheets and using her cheeky mouth for other purposes."

"Is that your less than subtle way of telling me to kneel before your Queen?" Emma teases, her tongue tracing over warm skin still beaded with sweat.

"I am your Queen," Regina answers even as she nuzzles into Emma's neck.

"Yes, you are."

She starts to lower herself, but gets stopped by a hand on her shoulder and then that same hand lifting her face up. Before she can even think of what to say, Regina's lips are crashing down on hers and there's a fierce need and desire being expressed – a sentiment beyond titles and terms. This is Regina trying to express to Emma that behind the teasing and play, there's something real there.

She might be the Queen, but it's just a title and this is so much more than that.

They are so much more than Queen and Street Rat or any other term like such.

It's just this and them and then Regina is the one descending and Emma's head is falling backwards onto the pillow and she's holding Regina tight against her.

She wakes up while the sun is still sleeping, and Regina is wrapped up tightly in her arms, but what she notices isn't the older woman's soft breathing or the calm of her rest, but rather the coldness of her feet as they press up against her own.

She realizes just how much she's come to enjoy that simple chill; that easy calm.

It's theirs – her warm feet and Regina's cold ones.

So she tucks her feet in tight and feels Regina curl into her to steal some warmth.

And she grins and joins the sun in its peaceful slumber.

**-Fin**


End file.
